Gelatine: making coworking places gel for better collaboration and social learning

ABSTRACT

Public libraries and coworking spaces seek for means to facilitate peer collaboration, peer inspiration and cross-pollination of skills and creativity. However, social learning, inspiration and collaboration between coworkers do not come naturally. In particular in (semi-) public spaces, the behavioural norm among unacquainted coworkers is to work in individual silos without taking advantage of social learning or collaboration opportunities. This paper presents results from a pilot study of 'Gelatine' -- a system that facilitates shared encounters between coworkers by allowing them to digitally 'check in' at a work space. Gelatine displays skills, areas of interest, and needs of currently present coworkers on a public screen. The results indicate that the system amplifies users' sense of place and awareness of other coworkers, and serves as an interface for social learning through exploratory, opportunistic and serendipitous inspirations, as well as through helping users identify like-minded peers for follow-up face-to-face encounters. We discuss how Gelatine is perceived by users with different pre-entry motivations, and discuss users' challenges as well as non-use of the system.

References

1. Aabo, S., & Audunson, R. (2012). Use of library space and the library as place. Library & Information Science Research, 34, 138--149.
2. Aabo, S., Audunson, R., & Varheim, A. (2010). How do public libraries function as meeting places? Library & Information Science Research, 32, 16--26.
3. Bilandzic, M., & Foth, M. (2013). Libraries as Coworking Spaces: Understanding User Motivations and Perceived Barriers to Social Learning. Library Hi Tech, 31(2), 254--273.
4. Bilandzic, M., & Johnson, D. (2013, forthcoming). Hybrid Placemaking in the Library: Designing Digital Technology to Enhance Users' On-Site Experience. Australian Library Journal.
5. Björneborn, L. (2010). Design dimensions enabling divergent behaviour across physical, digital, and social library interfaces. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Persuasive Technology, Copenhagen, Denmark.
6. Certeau, Michel de, & Rendall, Steven. (1984). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
7. Churchill, E. F., Nelson, L., Denoue, L., Helfman, J., & Murphy, P. (2004). Sharing multimedia content with interactive public displays: a case study. Proceedings of the 5th conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques.
8. Deskmag. (2011). What Coworkers want. from http://www.deskmag.com/en/what-coworking-spaces-coworkers-want-165
9. DiMicco, J. M, Millen, D. R, Geyer, W., & Dugan, C. (2008). Research on the use of social software in the workplace. Paper presented at the CSCW'08 Workshop, Social Networking in Organizations, San Diego, California.
10. Dourish, P. (2006). Re-space-ing place: "place" and "space" ten years on. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 2006 20th anniversary conference on CSCW, Banff, Alberta, Canada.
11. Fatah gen. Schieck, A., Kostakos, V., & Penn, A. (2010). Exploring Digital Encounters in the Public Arena. In K. S. Willis, G. Roussos, K. Chorianopoulos & M. Struppek (Eds.), Shared encounters (pp. 179--195). London: Springer-Verlag New York Inc. c.
12. Goffman, Erving. (1966). Behavior in public places: notes on the social organization of gatherings. New York: Free Press.
13. Goffman, Erving. (1972). Encounters: two studies in the sociology of interaction. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin.
14. Groenbaek, K., Rohde, A., Sundararajah, B., & Bech-Petersen, S. (2006). InfoGallery: informative art services for physical library spaces. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 6th ACM/IEEE-CS joint conference on Digital libraries, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
15. Harrison, S., & Dourish, P. (1996). Re-place-ing space: the roles of place and space in collaborative systems. Proceedings of the 1996 ACM conference on CSCW
16. Huang, E., Koster, A., & Borchers, J. (2008). Overcoming assumptions and uncovering practices: When does the public really look at public displays? Pervasive Computing, 228--243.
17. IBM Research. (2011). Beehive (SocialBlue). Retrieved 16 February, 2013, from http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_project.php?id=1231
18. Konomi, Shin'ichi, Sezaki, Kaoru, & Kitsuregawa, Masaru. (2010). History-Enriched Spaces for Shared Encounters. In K. S. Willis, G. Roussos, K. Chorianopoulos & M. Struppek (Eds.), Shared Encounters (pp. 47--60): Springer London.
19. LaPointe, L. M. (2006). Coffee anyone? College & research libraries news, 67(2), 97--99.
20. Leckie, G. J., & Hopkins, J. (2002). The public place of central libraries: Findings from Toronto and Vancouver. The Library Quarterly, 72(3), 326--372.
21. Lefebvre, Henri. (1991). The production of space (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). Oxford: Blackwell.
22. Legrady, G. (2005). Making visible the invisible. Retrieved 20 January, 2013, from http://www.mat.ucsb.edu/g.legrady/glWeb/Projects/spl/spl.html
23. Ludwig, L., & Starr, S. (2005). Library as place: results of a delphi study. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 93(3), 315.
24. McCarthy, J. F., Congleton, B., & Harper, F. M. (2008). The context, content & community collage: sharing personal digital media in the physical workplace. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 2008 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work.
25. McCarthy, J. F., Farnham, S. D., Patel, Y., Ahuja, S., Norman, D., Hazlewood, W. R., & Lind, J. (2009). Supporting community in third places with situated social software. Proceedings of the fourth international conference on Communities and technologies.
26. McKechnie, L. E. F., French, PK, Goodall, G. R., Kipp, M., Paquette, D. L., & Pecoskie, J. L. (2004). Covered beverages now allowed: Public libraries and book superstores. Canadian journal of information and library science, 28(3), 39--51.
27. Michelis, D., & Müller, J. (2011). The audience funnel: Observations of gesture based interaction with multiple large displays in a city center. Intl. Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 27(6), 562--579.
28. Morrison, A., Jacucci, G., & Peltonen, P. (2008). CityWall: Limitations of a multi-touch environment. Proc. PPD 2008, 31--35.
29. Müller, J., Alt, F., Michelis, D., & Schmidt, A. (2010). Requirements and design space for interactive public displays. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the international conference on Multimedia.
30. Müller, J., Wilmsmann, D., Exeler, J., Buzeck, M., Schmidt, A., Jay, T., & Krüger, A. (2009). Display Blindness: The effect of Expectations on Attention towards Digital Signage. Proceedings of Pervasive 2009, Nara.
31. Oldenburg, R. (2001). Celebrating the third place: inspiring stories about the "great good places" at the heart of our communities. New York: Marlowe & Co.
32. Partnership for 21st century skills. (2011). Framework for 21st Century Learning. Retrieved 1 December, 2012, from http://www.p21.org/overview/skills-framework
33. Satchell, Christine, & Dourish, Paul. (2009). Beyond the user: use and non-use in HCI. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 21st Annual Conference of OzCHI: Design: Open 24/7, Melbourne, Australia.
34. Schneekloth, Lynda H., & Shibley, Robert G. (1995). Placemaking: the art and practice of building communities. New York: Wiley.
35. Schroeter, R., Foth, M., & Satchell, C. (2012). People, content, location: sweet spotting urban screens for situated engagement. Proceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems Conference.
36. Shill, H. B., & Tonner, S. (2003). Creating a better place: Physical improvements in academic libraries, 1995--2002. College & Research Libraries, 64(6), 431--466.
37. Sinclair, B. (2007). Commons 2.0: Library Spaces Designed for Collaborative Learning. EDUCAUSE Quarterly Magazine, 30(4), 4--6.
38. Sinclair, J., & Cardew-Hall, M. (2008). The folksonomy tag cloud: when is it useful? Journal of Information Science, 34(1), 15--29. doi: 10.1177/0165551506078083
39. Soja, Edward W. (1996). Thirdspace: journeys to Los Angeles and other real-and-imagined places. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell.
40. Struppek, M. (2006). The social potential of Urban Screens. Visual Communication, 5(2), 173--188.
41. Talve, A. (2011). Libraries as places of invention. Library Management, 32(8/9), 493--504.
42. Thudt, A., Hinrichs, U., & Carpendale, S. (2012). The bohemian bookshelf: supporting serendipitous book discoveries through information visualization. Proceedings of the 2012 ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Austin, Texas.
43. Tuan, Yi-fu. (1977). Space and place: the perspective of experience. Minneapolis.
44. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in Society: Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
45. Waxman, L., Clemons, S., Banning, J., & McKelfresh, D. (2007). The library as place: Providing students with opportunities for socialization, relaxation, and restoration. New Library World, 108(9/10), 424--434.
46. Willis, K., Roussos, G., Chorianopoulos, K., & Struppek, M. (2010). Shared Encounters. In K. Willis, G. Roussos, K. Chorianopoulos & M. Struppek (Eds.), Shared encounters (pp. 1--15). London: Springer-Verlag New York Inc. c.

Index Terms

• Human-centered computing